The Death of the Sun-hero-The Yellow Fairy Book

The Death of the Sun-hero-The Yellow Fairy Book

A king and queen once had a son. They thought he was as great as the sun, so they called him the sun-hero. When he was somewhat grown, he was supposed to go on a quest to prove that he was worthy of being called the Sun-hero. To do this, he had to guard an apple tree, belonging to the sun, for nine days and nights against two black wolves that would attempt to damage the tree.

The young man fought valiantly for eight days, but on the eighth night, he fell asleep. This meant that he had to leave, or the sun would kill him. He failed his quest and returned home. His mother and father were like, “Eh, it’s not everything.” As it turns out, the prince’s mother had a fairy make a deal with most of the creatures in which they could not harm the prince. She didn’t make deals with all the animals though. Many years passed and one day the prince was getting water from a creek and a crab came up and snapped his tongue off. The prince then died. The crab was a servant of the sun who hadn’t made a bargain with the fairy.

The prince lost his life by claiming a title he should not have had.

What I liked

I do like that this prince’s parents didn’t think it was the end of the world that he did not succeed in his quest. Sometimes, we fail, and you know what–that’s ok. We don’t have to be a major success with everything we do. It would be nice if everyone around us was like, “Well, you tried your best,” in a very supportive manner, including our parents. No, Leslie, little Tommy cannot be the best at everything he does; cut the kid some slack.

I also agree with the sentiment of this story. You really shouldn’t claim some title you don’t have. You can’t go around saying you’re a doctor when you’ve never gotten a Ph.D., went to medical school, or another specialty doctorate program. You can’t put blue lights on your car and say you’re a police officer. There are proper channels that we have to take to get certain titles. There are reasons for that.

You can brag all you want about how you hold the world record for spitting ping-pong balls out of your mouth, or whatever, but unless you actually earned that title, it doesn’t mean squat.

What I didn’t like

I still feel a bit bad that this prince died, death by crab, no less. I kind of feel like this would be the equivalent of putting a Mafia hit out on someone because they didn’t pass their driver’s license test. That’s awfully unreasonable.

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About The Author

There's way too much to write in this tiny space, but let's be short about this. Ashe is the creator, maintainer, and writer of One-Elevenbooks and has been since 2011. She likes to make artwork and write novels. She also likes the outside, in general. Ashe has a BA in Fine Arts and a BS in Information Technology.